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Comment by kristopolous | Hacker News Reader

What do you mean? Are you honestly saying that medical care is provided for 95% of the planet at a voluntary loss and that the exorbitance of the US market is the only thing that keeps the companies solvent?

Really?! They are intentionally in the red, everywhere else, and make up for it through overcharging the US market?

Do the local hospitals in Bangalore franchise to the US to do so? Do the nurses go on extended holidays to make back all the money they lose? Do the pharmacists go home and night and pack boxes headed for the US so they don't continue to go into debt? Is that how you think it works?

That would probably explain why my GlaxoSmithKline stock is yielding a 6% dividend. Cause they are just that broke.

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I think it happens with medicines though not voluntarily. Basically in the US the drug companies have bought out the politicians so the price of medicines are sky high. Meanwhile in many countries like India, the government has negotiated or busted patents to get affordable medicines. The drug companies can live with this as long as Americans pay for the full cost of medicines.

No way. There's thousands of drugs companies which are not global and do no business in the US. They operate in the black, at profit, like any other company. Collective bargaining rights won't put them out of business. That's so false.

Do you have a list of these thousand drug companies and the countries they are located in?

Orion Pharmaceuticals in Finland gets only 13% of it's revenue from N. America.

I've done lots of international travel. You get regional everything - regional car companies, hotel chains, restaurants, grocery stores, drug stores, etc. They contain regional products. I turn on the radio and hear regional music. I watch TV and see movies I've never heard of, stars faces I've never seen, and television shows I never knew existed. They have their only mobile carriers and apps and their own versions of things like yelp. A few things are international, but 95% isn't.

The idea that every single sector from industry to the food supply to entertainment to automotive to clothing and home appliances are all regional, and the drug companies are all actually, located in the US? Is that what you are claiming?

I'll come back and edit this ... but asking for a list is just silly. edited: Axon-Pharma, Steifel, Xenetic, Pharmsynthez, Laboratorios Vargas, Rusnano, CPhi (ok I have other things to do) ... Oh yeah, also, explain Cuba.

Anyway, have you traveled internationally?

Please read what I wrote. I never claimed anything about hotel chains, restaurants, etc being located in the US.

I have a list there near the end. it's not all just "blah blah blah". Do I need to honestly do all the legwork here for illustrating the plain and obvious?

This is kinda becoming a huge waste of my time, sorry.

Okay let me give you a specific case. There is a drug for Hepatitis which is crazy expensive in US at $85K. They are licensing it for $2K in India. Even when you factor for cost of living differences, it is still less expensive in India. The drug companies don't care because they can make their profits in the US while making it cheaper elsewhere.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/business/international/mak...

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